Ragnar Hanas wrote: > I have produced 2 books from one using conditional text for UK and US > spelling and metric units and those parts of the text that are different. > The forewords are different, and here whole pages are conditional. If you > have the appendix in a different file, you could just make that whole text > conditional, and in the book where the appendix is not needed, you would > just be adding an extra blank page when all the conditional text is hidden > (or insert a conditional picture on this page if you don't want it blank). > I > much prefer to have only one book, since most of the updates are needed in > both language versions.
Sorry, but that makes no sense. The same FM file can be included in any number of books. You update that file, and it's updated in all the books in which it's included. The files that are needed in both language versions would be included in both books. (Each book would have its own condition settings.) Conditionalizing an entire FM file (which leaves 2 blank pages for a 2-sided doc with typical pagination settings) strikes me as an ugly kludge, and inserting some random picture(s) doesn't make it much prettier. :-} I don't understand the reluctance to use multiple books. It's really not difficult: you have a UserGuide-US.book and a UserGuide-UK.book. They share most of the same .fm files (but each has its own generated files). They use different conditional text settings and maybe different variable definitions. To produce the UK version: 1) Open UserGuide-UK.book and select all the files in the book window. 2) Go to View > Show/Hide Conditional Text, and click Set to apply the settings you previously set up for that book. 3) If there are variable differences between the books, import the UK book variables from one of the files that's specific to the UK book (like a generated file). 4) Update/generate the book, and you're ready to print/PDF/whatever. This isn't rocket science. If you have only one book, you have to do all the same things listed above -- you just do them twice to the same book. I have to think that that's more error-prone than having a clearly named book for each version, which "remembers" its conditional text settings and stores its variables. IMHO, YMMV, etc. But really, give it a try. :-) Richard Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 ------ rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-777-0436 ------
